


Origin of the Translator

by signofthesky



Series: Origin of the Translator [1]
Category: Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Genre: Backstory, Family, Inglourious Basterds - Freeform, Original Female Characters - Freeform, Other, Resistance, WWII, tarantino
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-01 17:04:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17248064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signofthesky/pseuds/signofthesky
Summary: A definitive backstory of translator and marksman Cpl. Wilhelm Wicki.





	1. der Anfang

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first IB work so please bear with me! I wish we would've gotten more information on all of the characters in the movie and this is my contribution and viewpoint on how his life could've been. Trying to keep it as historically accurate and realistic as possible. Thank you for clicking!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Beginning

Late in December of 1908, Wilhelm Wicki was born to a young Austrian couple. His mother, Anna, was a woman of about twenty three. She was the definition of European beauty of the time. Her auburn hair was always twisted into a simple updo, her well used ankle length dresses sported minimal signs of destruction. Anna meticulously worked to make sure that herself and her children looked presentable. He had a sister named Frida. She was two years his senior and never let him forget it. When they were alone they never got along, but had an unspoken agreement to tolerate each other when their mother was around. One thing they agreed on was that Anna had her hands full enough caring for them and their modest home while their father was away.

His name was Hans. He was quite a few years older than Anna. Their relationship was a bit of a taboo in the village. She fell pregnant before they were married and they had to throw a small ceremony together in the spring of 1905 to avoid all out controversy. Hans was out traveling around the local towns searching for carpentry jobs small enough that he could handle alone but still big enough to support his family. Wilhelm always thought his mother was the best woman he'd ever meet. During downtime when she finished chores, she would hold him and Frida close. She whispered Hebrew songs to them and introduced the children to simple readings of the Torah. 

He never really cared much for his father. Hans didn't do anything wrong perse, he was just barely ever home. Wilhelm much preferred the gentle words of his mother. Hans did make it home for two weeks right before his seventh birthday. There was a certain coldness in his voice this time. He didn't hold eye contact with Anna. Anna took note of how his left hand fiddled with the tablecloth while he ate with his right. Hans even went as far as leaving the table the minute he finished his helping of stew. She was visibly upset at this behavior. He had been gone for nearly three months and can't even look her in the eyes? Young Wilhelm took note of her sudden change in demeanor and climbed into her lap. She wrapped her comforting arms around him. 

Not more than a handful days after Hans' disappointing arrival home did Anna come down with a violent strain of an undiagnosed respiratory illness. In a matter of 72 hours she was overcome with bone shattering coughs and a fever exceeding 38.8 degrees. Wil and Frida never got the chance to say goodbye to their mother. Hans had shuffled them out of the house and to a neighbor's with alarming indifference before they even knew she was ill. There was no funeral. The children were deprived of seeing their mother one last time when Hans and a friend hastily buried her a few kilometers away from their property. It was when Wilhelm had enough of his father. Hans had essentially robbed him of the closure he desperately needed after his mothers death.


	2. Kindheit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Childhood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i realized that i completely forgot about world war one. i forgot about a world war. tried to fix it tho! enjoy!

Wilhelm and Frida learned that his father had an affair the hard way. The new woman arrived with a flourish. A thick German accent clouded her every word and served as a cold reminder of her presence. She acknowledged the siblings coldly, as if they were nothing more than an inconvenience of the marriage. It became blatantly obvious very quickly why they chose to marry in an elaborate ceremony so soon after Anna’s passing. The woman, now formally referred to as Louisa Wicki, had insisted on nothing less than perfection for the day. Hans spent nearly every Krone he had toiled mercilessly to earn over the previous months of work. Wilhelm and Frida had long since given up trying to talk sense into their father. It was clear that a veil of either love, lust or both was pulled tightly over his eyes. 

By March of 1915, a plan was already set to move the barely communicating family to Munich and the first World War was already in swing. Hans got drafted a week prior. Louisa was already slacking on their care. She came from money, yet the cottage they once called home was beginning to show signs of wear. White tile began chipping off the walls in large chunks in the bathroom. Bushes grew wildly outside the door. 

The siblings were now eight and ten years of age, respectively. They had grown closer during the months of Louisa being in their mother’s home. Fights were a thing of the past. Their mothers death, fathers conscription and this new evil were much greater demons to face than each other. 

The trio rode in one of the few operating passenger express trains. All others had been suspended due to the coal shortage brought on by the war. After what only seemed like minutes into the trip, they had arrived at the German border crossing. Their papers were checked, Louisa interviewed, and her papers checked again by the single agent that could be spared to board the train. Hours stretched by with nothing to see but countryside. Once they arrived in Munich, to the siblings’ surprise, they were briskly led to one of the nicer homes in the city. It was located centrally on a small but tidy plot of land. The building boasted a bedroom and matching bath for each of them. A sprawling living area was decorated in shades of dark red. 

Frida took the liberty of asking what they would be doing about school. It was met with a sigh from Louisa and referral to a servant. Her name was Alina. She was about eighty years old. Her nature reminded Wilhelm strikingly of his mother. She helped them get enrolled in a course including mathematics, science and language. They spent the next years in school. Frida thrived while Wilhelm struggled a bit with the sciences. Language, though, was his favorite. He began to excel at Latin, even to the point where his teacher would slip him short English texts to read over. Wilhelm even made a few friends. They bonded over the shared plight of having their fathers away at war.


	3. Aufstieg eines Diktator

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rise of a Dictator

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i found a super cool series on netflix about the training a group of british spies received during the war so i was inspired to write this chapter very quickly. i’m trying not to rush thru important events/his childhood but all the exciting stuff and some looks at his viewpoint start happing at the end of this chapter. enjoy!

1923 showed Wilhelm his fifteenth year. His father had returned from the war immediately after it had finished, somewhat unscathed and reminiscent of how he was back when Anna was alive. There were days where Hans stayed in bed, though. He spent those days staring at the dull pattern on the ceiling. The echoes of gunshots still seemed to plague his tired eardrums. Sometimes when he closed his eyes, he thought he could see his fellow soldiers, many of whom he began to cherish more than his own children, get struck down. Images of battle continued to haunt him. 

Wilhelm noticed this new, strange behavioral pattern. He reasoned with himself that there was nothing he could do. His father was just coping with his losses as Wilhelm had with his mother. By this point, he was fluent in Latin and nearly so in English. His newest venture was Hebrew. He knew he had to keep his mothers legacy alive. She consumed his mind during his studies of the language. The boy used Anna as a motivation of sorts; a reason to continue to press forward. 

His friends were a mismatched group of boys and girls. He didn’t spend too much time with them but they didn’t seem to mind. Every Monday after classes got out, they would crowd around the table at his house and play a different board game that one of them snatched from their parents. 

That year also showed him the beginning of Hitler’s rise to power. In November, him and a group of Nazi Party members attempted a coup of the German government in his very own city of Munich. It had ended in failure, of course, but it was more than enough to get people talking. There were whispers around Munich that maybe he should’ve succeeded, that maybe it would’ve been for the best. Wilhelm never agreed and wisely kept that fact to himself. 

Perhaps it came from a place of comfort. Thanks to his step mother and her inheritance, the family (if one could call it that), was never bothered by the sanctions placed on the government by the winners of the first World War. Wil and Frida heard about them in school. A majority of their friends had felt the loss in one way or another, whether it was through a deceased male relative or dramatic shortages on money. 

A mere 9 months after that, days before his sixteenth birthday, Hitler was released from prison after serving, in Wilhelm’s opinion, a laughably short sentence. Then, a memoir was released. If the original failed coup got people talking, Hitler’s book got them screaming. People didn’t try to hide their support anymore. They didn’t worry if anyone would think of them differently. If they had a leader, they would rally. And rally they did.


	4. Wendepunkt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turning Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i sat by a fireplace and felt compelled to write this chapter. i tried to make it painfully realistic. i also found out that the british resistance group i mentioned in last chapters note inspired oss so reality ties directly into how the basterds really would have been trained!

By this point, Hitler had decided that he could seize power by diplomatic means. His trial was held publicly and thus did little to thwart us agenda. The rhetoric of anti-capitalism was very popular in the country that had been plagued by sanctions. Aryan bloodlines were a relatively new concept. Wilhelm disagreed with this as well. He only voiced his concerns to his friends. It was the only safe way. 

His dearest friend was called Otto. His father was African and his mother German. The Nazi Party’s open dismay for him was dangerous. When Wil and Otto went out together, they would get hurled with judgmental glances and ugly slurs. One day in 1928, while the duo were aged 20, things turned exceptionally violent. 

A group of men with red armbands were traipsing down an alley. The group of four were the epitome of perfect Aryans: tall, fair skinned and strong. Wil heard them shouting quotes from one of Hitler’s speeches. Until they saw Otto. Their playful demeanor changed instantly. The apparent leader of the group, a brunet with a large scar on his forehead, approached them first. 

He took one look at them and laughed. It couldn’t have been three seconds later that all four of them were on top of Otto. Wilhelm was unable to keep track of who was doing the most damage. He grabbed the man closest to him by the armband. His first move was to rip it off. It floated down to the asphalt as the two struggled. Wil had the upper hand, putting the considerably smaller man in a tight headlock before tossing him to the side and reaching for the next. 

Crucial minutes passed of punches being thrown, kicks being dodged and blood being lost. The attackers finally gave up. With one final blow to Otto’s head, they stumbled away. Wilhelm sustained a multitude of minor injuries. Otto, however, had the worst of it by far. He laid on the ground, eyes fluttering open and closed. His shirt was torn in at least two places. Bones were visibly broken. And the blood. There was so much blood. Too much blood. Wilhelm kneeled beside him, at a complete loss of what to do. No one was around. They were on their own. 

Wilhelm was done being silent. His faith was already being openly targeted but being the only one in the family who still practiced and having no ties to Synagogue, he was relatively safe. He had never experienced anything to the magnitude of what happened to Otto. Wil sat by his best friend’s bedside as he took his last breaths. Otto locked eyes with him and made him promise to fight. To do whatever he can do to bring down the Nazi Party. To never back down. 

Attacks towards his religion Wil could take. Attacks against people he considered family, on the other hand? No. It was this that gave him the final push towards resisting the Party.


	5. Widerstand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Resistance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha wow it has been way too long i am so sorry! i’ve been pretty lazy not gonna lie. i’m basing this resistance off of nothing in particular so it’s not a direct reference to any one group and is entirely fictional. next chapter is when he comes to america (it won’t take 3 weeks for me to write it, promise!) enjoy xx

Wilhelm voiced his concerns to a trusted friend named Bertha on a temperate March day. He told her all about what happened to Otto. She was the only one that cared to ask. They had spoken in hushed tones about the climate of the country for years. He had no idea of her connections. Immediately after Wil confided in her, she grasped his hand in her own and led him to a quiet street. Deep red flags with striking white circles and dark swastikas draped down from government buildings. Smaller versions were displayed in his own home, much to his closeted dismay. 

They found themselves in front of an unassuming little tavern almost at the end of the city limits. Bertha gave the wooden door a series of sharp, abrupt knocks. A small window at eye level slid open, followed shortly by the door. They were greeted by a trio consisting of two men and a woman. 

“Bertha!” The young woman rushed forward and enveloped Bertha in a hug which concluded with a soft kiss to her cheek. This was news to Wil. 

“Wanna introduce us to your friend?” One of the men asked. 

“Of course. Wilhelm, this is Elisabeth, Fredrich and Otto. We’re part of the Resistance,” She explained. This was also news to Wil, although it did explain her consistent absences from school and social events. 

It took more than a few seconds to process these new pieces of information. Who she was, what she did, where they currently were. What they could do. He had never heard whispers of any form of Resistance to the Reich. As far as he knew, everyone in the country was blindly supportive to the changes that were slowly but surely being made. 

He was snapped out of his apparent stupor when Fredrich gestures to a bookshelf. Wilhelm stared stupidly at it. Friedrich cracked a smile while the other three laughed. He stood at the side and pushed it roughly. Wilhelm began to chuckle too. A hidden staircase, perfectly disguised by an innocent looking display of well used books. Otto took the first steps down into a dimly lit and sparsely furnished basement. A simple set of four chairs and a table sat directly in the middle. Elisabeth crossed to the opposite side, lighting a pair of tall candles before taking her seat. 

It was there, on that chilly spring night that Wilhelm learned about the Resistance. It consisted of only a few hundred members scattered across Germany. At that point there wasn’t a whole lot they could do as international outrage hadn’t yet grown. Their main goal was trying to find out the Reich’s next move before they make it. Intelligence gathering. 

It was there that he spent a good portion of his time. As years went on, their duties grew in importance. Other countries started taking notice of what Hitler was doing. Condemnation, especially in European lands closest to the country, grew quickest. They were cautious. 

It was there that he grew in confidence. He went from ripping down propaganda posters and eavesdropping on relevant conversations in the cover of night to setting inconvenient fires or stealing documents or starting to coordinate with neighboring Resistance groups. 

The Enabling Act of 1933 gave Hitler full reign of the German government. It was when Wicki knew he had to go even bigger. Him, Bertha, Elisabeth, Otto and Fredrich allied with out of country groups. Their activities continued to grow in urgency until they were sending members to Berlin. They all kept up with their normal lives except for Wicki. He stayed at the tavern and only left to do odd jobs to supplement himself. Days were spent carpenting, doing ironwork and butchering. 

Until December of 1937 came.


	6. Verlässlichkeit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reliability

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some action!! suspense!! aldo!!
> 
> another mention of the tavern. maybe it’ll be important later.

News of the Reich annexing his homeland swept across the world. By this point, Wilhelm’s whole family had joined the party in one way or another. His father joined and became an official member, his stepmother listened to Hitler’s speeches religiously, even his sister was an instructor for the Band of German Maidens. He was in this alone. Now at age twenty nine, Wil knew he had to leave. Friedrich turned out to be more helpful than originally anticipated. He was able to secure, with the help of the enlarged Resistance, a set of falsified documents. They still boasted his correct name but changed his country of residence back to Austria. 

The group of five said tearful goodbyes as a light stream of frosty snow landed around them. Wil was assured a multitude of times that they would always be in the tavern to help him. They had taken the combined liberty of establishing an itinerary for his travels. He was to leave the day after the next, a Tuesday. A series of underground sources gave him a safe path to get to Paris. From Paris he would fly to Canada, then Philadelphia. 

Bertha took him aside after the rest had gone inside. They stood for a moment trying to decide what to say. If it weren’t for the other, neither of them would have made it as far as they did. A necessary pair. 

“Wil,” She started. “You know what to do. You come back and show them. For Otto.”

“I won’t let you or him down,” Wilhelm responded simply. Bertha nodded. 

“I’ll let you go then.”

They exchanged a final hug. He grabbed his bag and walked in the direction of his first stop without looking back. 

——————————————

Less than a week later, he was standing in his Pittsburgh apartment. The journey to America had gone smoothly. A testament to the true power of the Resistance. He was set up with a cozy studio. There was a single bed shoved into one of the corners. A table, chair and sink were lined up along the opposite wall. His bathroom was shared with three other tenants. 

On his second day in country he went directly to enlist in the military. After all, that’s what he was really there to do. He was immediately brought into the Reserve. Weekends were filled with rifle training. He elected to fill his weekdays with ironwork and his nights with language training. A Springfield sniper rifle became his weapon of choice. He excelled in sharpshooting from distances up to 500 meters. The range of the rifle was 550. He didn’t stop until he made dozens of shots from even farther. 

Wil was held in reserve until ‘42 when he was officially drafted and awarded the rank of Specialist. It was his intense dedication to serve, but more importantly, his refusal to accept anything less than perfection that brought him to the attention of his Commanding Officer. 

And to Aldo Raine.


End file.
